For ever and for ever when I move

“I sorry… where you from?”

“Migook saram imnee-dahh. I’m from America. Migook.”

“Ohhhhhh!!! Odee (muu muu muu) ….?”

“Minnesota, you know Minnesota?”

“Oh, Yes! California!!!”

“Um… no. Umm.. Chicago. You know Chicago?”

“Ohhhhhh, California! Ooo-upeedah! Ooouu-peediaaaa, beee-yooo-teee-fuuull, you beaaaauuuteefulll, understand? (Motions toward face) shoooop, small! Beeeyoooteeful. Eeeyyyyes, beeyooooteefulll, you know? Nay, beeyyoouuteeeful eyyyes.”

“Yes, okay, thank you. Cahm-sahm nee- dah.”

“Ohhh, I sorry, Engrisheee very…. I no speak-ee Engrisheee…”

“English is very difficult, I know.”

“Naaaay, difficult! I no speak-ee Engrisheee, veeeeeeery difficult!!!!”

“Cahn- chan-ayye-yo, I know, arr-ayo, It’s okay.”

“Okay? Okay. Beeeyooouteeful. Okay.”

[Monday night sample of conversation after random encounter with the teachers from my friend’s school, eating Samgyeupsal. There may or may not have been several bottles of Soju involved to spur this particular case of enthusiam. None of the factors involved are uncommon.]

Due to the fact that postage takes two weeks or more to deliver birthday letters, combined with my own limited ability to plan at least a week in advance, I have instead adapted to attacking my wonderful mother with birthday messages via every manner on the internetz and webz and phonez lines.

Consequently, I must take this opportunity to say, Happy Birthday Mama. You are one of the kindest people I know and I love you dearly.

I hope your day was filled with love and flowers and chocolates and music and smiling people and big hugs and lots and lots of love. I love you.

i

love

you!

And there you have it.

The semester begins in a flurry, teachers running around like crazy, lesson plans constructed spur of the moment, schedule changes ringing in as quickly as the bell rings to begin class, the water pot steaming constantly and the loud slurping of teachers on that sweet, sweet traditional sugar-cream dixie cup of coffee a continual hum in the background as the phone rings, students clatter in the hallways, highlighters and white-out sticks and pens, pencils scraping in their sharpeners, feet clattering across the office floor, fingers tapping on keyboards, the rhythm of the printer spitting out sheet after sheet, hot off the press, snipping slurping ringing speaking laughing screaming eating running printing tapping talking paper people voices:

the school year begins, and I couldn’t be happier, eager eyed- first year students that gasp in surprise as I walk in the room, excited second and third year students that cheer to see me, familiar with me and I can chat away at least half an hour, happy to see them, eager and my desk is covered with paper, colored pencils sketching out the hours of the day in an attempt to code my lesson plans, sunshine leaking through the shades to spill on my desk, a headache leaking in between my eyes and I realize I forgot to drink my morning coffee in the flurry of bells and lessons and students and

I am happy, who knew teaching was so much fun!?

Well, friends, here we are, at the end of winter vacation and already six months into my contract. What a whirlwind of emotions and experiences it has been, and still six more months to go!

This week begins a new academic school year here at Yeoju Girls’ High School. March 2nd is the first day of school, and I can only imagine that time will fly by even faster than last semester, with a full load of classes to teach, extra classes in the evenings, the weather growing more beautiful, the days becoming longer and lighter, continually finding more mountains to hike, food to eat, people to meet, language to study, nooks and crannies to explore…

Though Korea has more than a usual amount of frustrating days, with no end of cultural differences to adjust to, the frequent isolated times where it feels no meaningful connection has been made for the entirety of the day, and several sick to the senses days where any sort of normalcy is absent…. I must say that Korea has only continued to grow on me. It is a beautiful country: the landscape, the cuisine, the people. Koreans are incredibly kind-hearted people whose deeply- rooted values of hierarchical respect, filial duties and studious, hard-working mindsets continually astound me. I feel that, no matter how many words I used, I could never quite capture the level of respect and honor that has been given to me here.

As a brief editorial note, I realize I didn’t post in this blog for a little over a month, and for this I apologize, but I decided not to try and catch up on my vacation travels through Taiwan and Thailand, and instead limit this blog’s content to Korea.

So, Korea it is. I am sure I will be able to keep you entertained with material in the next six months: we have lost sixteen teachers at my school, including four of my best young female teacher friends, and gained sixteen new ones. I have been moved to a cubicle desk on my own, and no longer have Mr. Choi sitting beside me. I will no longer be teaching classes on my own, for my classroom has been taken away and I will now be co-teaching all of my classes, each of which will have 35+ students.

In another note, we have summer, hiking, a school festival, an entirely new semester, and summer camp to look forward to before this year’s adventures in Korea come to an end. So, here’s to a new year, in continual meditation on the fact that change, though sometimes painful, is the regular and necessary rhythm of life.

To a new year! Here we go.

Two of the teachers that left for different schools-- during finals week last semester when we snuck out of school to get a waffle and some coffee from Ti Amo 🙂

I cannot tell you how pleased, proud, happy and amazed I am with the outcome of my winter camp at school. A month ago, my co-teacher came to my desk and told me I would have two weeks of class during winter vacation, and that I would have roughly twenty students for two hours a day, every day.

The students that chose to attend my winter camp had no idea what the class would entail: they only knew that they would be studying English with Amanda-teacher for two weeks, and solely for that, they put their name on the list.

I had absolute freedom in the scheduling, planning and execution of winter camp. Two hours a day with nineteen students, and I got to make all the lesson plans, balance the difficulty of learning and speaking English between writing exercises, my own story- telling, speaking games and crossword puzzles. I got to see the same students day after day, meaning I could assign writings and grade them, hand them back and watch their writing improve over the duration of the two weeks…. amazing.

On the first day, I announced to my students that we would be doing Skype dates with my parents, my little sister and a handful of her friends. My Korean students are well aware that I have a sister who is very close to their age, and the news both excited and terrified them.

My two weeks of lessons consisted mainly of exercises which would allow my students to face the computer screen with confidence and carry on a five to ten minute conversation in English with an American high school student that is very close to their age.

They did stunningly well. Throughout the two weeks, my students wrote essays, scripted questions and practiced speaking with each other, revised essays and created self-bios that I sent on to their future conversation partners, practiced and practiced and finally, in too quickly, the end of the second week came.

Yesterday we spend the day doing “warm-up” Skype dates, chatting with my mother, my father, and three of my very best friends from home. It was a free-for-all conversation, in which my students ran up and crouched in front of the computer with questions, excited to meet my family and friends, excited to speak in English and be understood, proud to understand and answer the questions asked of them.

Today came, and the Korean students went in pairs to the computer to greet their new American friends and future pen-pals. I will let the pictures speak for the two hours of giddy conversation, but let me just say that I am unspeakably proud of my students, and incredibly grateful for the very many friends that eagerly sacrificed sleep in order to experience a small part of my Korean life.

It was really an incredible experience. I cannot express enough how proud of my students I am, and how grateful I am for their honesty and earnestness in welcoming me into their life with open hearts.

<3 "The very best thing you can be in life is a teacher, provided that you are crazy in love with what you teach, and that your classes consist of eighteen students or fewer. Classes of eighteen students or fewer are a family, and feel and act like one." -Kurt Vonnegut, Speech at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27, 2007 [caption id="attachment_229" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="American high school students crowding in the screen to say hello."][/caption]

The first two students to go: excitement!

Two more students, Dayna and Jada.

Three of my most shy students. 🙂 Ava, Elly and Jane.

Students Jessie and Piona.

Students Leah and Emily, my bold and loud students.

The smiles are mirrored on both sides of the screen.

Two more students, shy but eager, Sophie and Jenna.

All of my Korean students wave goodbye!

Group photo with my whole winter camp class.

If you know me, you know that with anything that requires continual attention under a constantly recycling time schedule, I generally fall behind. This list includes, but is not limited to, watering plants, doing laundry, eating leftovers, washing dishes, buying toilet paper, turning in weekly school assignments, updating my blog.

I owe you an update about Taiwan, in which I should tell you how wonderful it was to spend comfortable time with old friends in a new country, drinking oolong tea in the mountains and spending long rainy mornings drinking coffee and eating fresh fruit in the comfort of a Taiwanese home, discussing books, language and travel.

And as it goes, in three weeks I will owe you another update about Thailand, in which I will be traveling for fifteen days, two thirds of that on my own, trekking through ruins and rainforests and islands on foot and bike and elephant.

And, technically, I should be updating you about my current winter camp, which is going wonderfully, for I adore my small class of nineteen eager students, two hours a day for two weeks, and look forward to connecting them in conversation and potential trans-Pacific friendships to ten eager American students, via the amazing connective poweress of the interwebs, aka Skype.

But, as my easy mind would have it, instead of finding me on the interwebs connecting myself to you, I have found myself calmly, peacefully, and quietly falling back into notebooks, sketches, and scribbled words to myself, occasionally in the company of other wonderful artistic people I am lucky enough to call my friends.

I have shamelessly stolen these pictures from my friend, Emily Albun, to whom all picture cred in this post will go.

Sketching at Bar Da, Hongdae, Seoul

Bottle of wine at Bar Da

Bar Da in Hongdae, Seoul: An Artist's Haven

Finally, a picture of my classroom! This is a group of 2nd Grade girls, one of the medium higher levels of comprehension. I really really really enjoy teaching this size class– classes of 40 are a totally different playing field. As you can see, they are all adorable.

I managed to get them all to pose for a picture, but it only lasted about three seconds before they were back up again. I love this class! One of my favorites. <3

My classroom is pretty much the technologically savvy classroom in the school– I have the mega computer in the front, which sends the image on the computer to nine different computer screens that are hooked to each of the nine tables in my classroom. Also, I can make the screen project full- size screen on the wall. Great for videos, like the recent ten- minute clip of America’s Funniest Home Videos, Halloween edition, that I’ve been showing my classes. HUGE hit. Pure giggle- scream fest. Awesome.

As you can see, my class is a total hit. We do things like run around, create general chaos, and look at adorable pictures of puppies. Hooray, English Conversation class sans textbook! You're the best!

Sidenote,

This is the sentence game-- I show a picture to the class and spent the entirety of the class screaming, running, laughing, cheering and brainstorming in English. It's great.

Halloween is the best holiday ever to teach. Hooray for culture! I’m a total sucker when it comes to an entire classroom of girls screaming, “Candeeee, Teacher, Canddyyyyy!!!!” to me, arms outstretched and eyes begging… I went through a 2.4kg bag of hard candy in my first 2.5 days. Dangit. Luckily I learned to have a little discretion in giving handfuls and occasionally whip out the *high five* prize. The devastated- and- equally- surprised- and- hopeful looks on their faces is priceless. I also love actually giving them candy, which is why I’ve made (literally) three trips to the grocery store already. Sigh. Goodbye, October paycheck, you’re dissolving into the giddy giggles and screams of six hundred rural Korean girls, and I’m helpless to stop it.

On another note entirely, I went hiking up a mountain this weekend! For having a population of 50 billion people, Korea has done an amazing job of preserving the natural beauty of their many, many mountains. This weekend I hopped on a six- hour all- night bus full of tourists, Koreans and English teachers in order to arrive at Juwangsan National Park at 6am. Nope, I didn’t sleep a wink on that all- night bus ride, but it was unbelievably worth it to see the mountains. Due to technical difficulties, the mountains will not be pictured in this particular blog post, but I promise to show them to you soon!

In the meantime, I hope this awesome, random collection of pictures will tie you over until I can get my head on straight and show you thirsty followers some mountains!

Grandpa and bike, snapped on one of my early walks home from school.Autumn rice paddies turn a brilliant, beautiful golden yellow color. I love the alternating strips of yellow and green that crosses the horizon in autumnal Korea.Autumn rice paddies turn a brilliant, beautiful golden yellow color. I love the alternating strips of yellow and green that crosses the horizon in autumnal Korea.

Autumn rice paddies turn a brilliant, beautiful golden yellow color. I love the alternating strips of yellow and green that crosses the horizon in autumnal Korea.

Today is busy. Crazy busy. Actually, yesterday was busy too. And the day before that was equally insane. Final exams have finished, which, after my first lame-duck day of sitting around keeping my office chair nice and warm, ended up being… insanely busy. I proctored exams for first and second grade and, coincidentally enough, being that third graders already took their final exams weeks ago, I got to teach my third grade classes between the hours I proctored exams.

There are different kinds of busy here in Korea, especially for me. We’ll try to categorize them as follows:

Days when everyone is busy. When everyone is busy, which happens all the time, nobody tells Amanda when there are schedule changes. This results in Amanda-teacher being extremely flustered with a full schedule of classes. Oftentimes, the classes I’m prepared for will be cancelled, which usually happens in one of two ways: (1) As I’m walking out the office door, arms full of papers, coffee clutched in my right hand, I’ll hear a, “Oh!” from behind me. In previous weeks, I would continue walking and get chased down the hallway by Mr. Choi, but nowadays I’ve learned to turn around and raise both eyebrows inquisitively while Mr. Choi, one of the two, will tell me, “Amanda, your class…. cancelled,” to which I reply, “Oh, okay,” and sit. (2) Other days I make it all the way out the door, down the hallway, down two flights of stairs and across the courtyard to my classroom, chilly and empty, and wait. Some days I wait for up to fifteen minutes before I give up. Other days I just turn around and head on back to my chair- warming duties.

On the other hand, it is not unusual for me to begin to relax, preparing eagerly for an hour of casual sitting, coffee- sipping and class prepping when suddenly, with two minutes before the next period begins, I will hear a click click click of Mrs. Gang’s heels crossing the office before she appears above my right shoulder and tells me, “Amanda, you have class, now.”

Some days I’m cool as a cucumber, lessons planned, and I can do it.

Other days I have no lesson plan for the unexpected schedule change, am flustered from already teaching three classes that day, one of which probaby had 38 crazy students that I unexpectedly had to teach on my own, or I haven’t had my morning coffee, don’t want to re-teach the lesson again, desperately need a break or am dead-beat exhausted from working so many 12-hour days at school, and this is when I want to cry and wail, “WHY DIDN”T SOMEONE TELL ME????? I CAN’T DO THISSSSSSS ANNYYYY–MOOORREEEEE.” This feeling is usually accompanied by desperate attempts to stifle the hot, rising panic and those tricky little tears of anger/ frustration that are always trying to sneak out of my eyes at exactly the wrong moments.

An example of the wrong moment for tears: when standing in front of 18 eager Korean students, crazy and talking and all over the room, a giggling, crazy, paper- throwing, chair- pulling wrestling mess of students, knowing you have an hour with them and can’t seem to solidify your mind enough to decide which activity to start the class with.

As it is, today is a different kind of day. Those kinds of days are the days I don’t have time to write. Today is a day when:

Everyone else is busy. Let me paint out the scene for you. I arrive at the office and nobody is sitting at their desk. People are everywhere, teachers and students. Papers are everywhere. Everything is a flurry of activity and nobody sees me come in the door, walk through them, and sit at my desk. Mr. Choi doesn’t turn to me and happily say, “Good Morning.” There will be no conversation with me for the better part of the day. The bell rings for class and the flurry of motion carries on, oblivious. About ten minutes after the bell rings, everything is quiet and empty in the office.

I have come to learn that this is the kind of day when my classes are usually cancelled.

And, sure enough, half my classes today are cancelled!

Cheers.

Awesome discovery of the day:

That little pile of dried sardines on top of a sticky piece of paper underneath the copy machine is, in fact, a mouse trap. There’s another one by the water fountain.

Apparently Mr. Choi smashing a mouse on the head with a stick wasn’t enough to kill off the entire mouse family. He must have impeccable aim, as he used the same wooden rod that is used to discipline the kids in school. Incredible office gratefulness as well, though I, myself, was enjoying the random shrieks throughout the week, immediately followed by the male-teachers patrolling the office, wooden discipline rods ready and waiting, kicking desks and attempting to scare out the mouse.

I’ll take little piles of sardines as an adequate substitute.

So goofy.

As an editor’s note, I realize that my English is a little slaughtered in this note, but I’m pretty tired and overwhelmed by the tidal wave of Korean that I’ve been swimming in, and can’t seem to understand how, or why, or where, the precise slaughtering has occurred, so, despite the longevity of breathless sentences, and possible usage of incorrect wordage, in this blog post, in which, everything seems, to go, insensibly, on, and, on, and on, forgive me.

Okay, I admit it. I love my camera.

In fact, I love my camera as much as Koreans love mirrors.

And let me tell you, Koreans love their mirrors.

Rural reflection en route to Godalsil temple/ ruins

Mirrors in Korea are everywhere. In the hallways. In stairwells. Along entire walls in coffee shops. In my student’s hands during classes. On teacher’s desks.

I have seen more men preening in Korea than anywhere else in my life. I consider this to be an impressive statement, being that I lived for a time in Italy, home of beautiful Italian men, who are not like our timid, humble Midwest American men.

Intelzone Elevator Reflections - my apartment in Yeoju

The elevator in my apartment is completely mirrors, all four walls, including the doors.

It is not uncommon to find myself awkwardly sharing the elevator with one Korean man, of any age, but for now, picture one who is relatively similar to my age, perhaps mid- to- upper- twenties: and me, standing awkwardly upright and swaying my weight from heels to toes, heels to toes while said man stands with his back to me, face glued to the mirror, hands patting at his hair, picking at his teeth, gazing, preening, with nary a glance elsewhere.

Awkward.

This scenario is the opposite of America, where it is blatantly uncool to preen, especially in the presence of others.

Men preen, women preen, Amanda stands awkwardly unsure of what to do with her hands, but often decides to settle on making solid eye contact with the floor, or, when the floor feels too lame, with the steely, slightly squirming reflection of the eyes exactly even to my own.

To be fair, physical appearance is a matter of some significance in Korea. An attractive physical appearance plays a role in getting a good job, as has been explained to me several times.

Mirrored mustard scarf.

Rural road to Godalsil II

As a result, the women are incredibly stylish. They do their makeup in little hand mirrors on the subway. On the streets. In busses. In cafes. While on a date with their man, who happens to also be dressed very stylishly, and carries his own purse, or his woman’s purse, or both, with one over each shoulder.

Plastic surgery is not uncommon in younger girls, end of middle school prior to starting high school, who like to go to the doctor and get a double eyelid. Double what? Double eyelid. Yes. You heard correctly.

Did you know that you, in the event that you are a non-Asian reader of this blog, which is a large percent of my blogosphere audience, and consequently I am referring to you, yes, you have a double eyelid, and that Korean women find that to be an incredibly beautiful feature of your face?

You may also have a small face, which I have been told is extremely attractive, and you may have a big nose, of which my own has been endlessly discussed after first introductions.

Enough.

In the spirit of cameras and mirrors, I offer you the following collection of mirrors, cameras, and opposite-Amanda photos.

Enjoy.

Onlyholic reflections: small and incredibly cheap coffee shop